Nightmare of a History: Philip Short's Pol Pot

Nightmare of a History: Philip Short's Pol Pot

Philip Short's new book, Pol Pot: The History of a Nightmare, is required

reading for anyone with a serious interest in the Khmer Rouge or the modern

history of Cambodia. However, many readers will likely find the experience a

combination of fascination and frustration, as the book veers from a masterful

beginning to a less than satisfactory conclusion. It reads almost as if the

author ran out of time, and was unable to apply the same incisive touch to the

late chapters as he managed to lavish on the earlier material. Even so, there is

much to recommend in this book.

ARCHITECTS OF MASS MURDER: Pol Pot (front row, center) and colleagues pose for a group photo at the Communist Party of Kampuchea's Third Congress held in the jungle near the Chinit River in 1971. The Congress, attended by some 60 delegates, confirmed Pol Pot as Secretary of the party's Central Committee and Chairman of its Military Commission. Other Khmer Rouge members pictured above include: Son Sen (back row, second from left, with glasses), Pol Pot's first wife Khieu Ponnary (second row, third from right), Ta Mok (back row, thrid from right), Deuch (back row, seventh from right), and Khieu Samphan (back row, eleventh from left). The banner reads, in English: "Long live the Communist Party of Kampuchea".

Pol Pot is a complex and ambitious work,

attempting to penetrate to the very marrow of the ultimate existential question

about the violence of the Khmer Rouge revolution: "Why?" Short writes that his

"cardinal issue is what it is about Cambodian society that has allowed, and

continues to allow, people to turn their backs on all they know of gentleness

and compassion, goodness and decency, and to commit appalling cruelties

seemingly without conscience [sic] of the enormity of their acts and certainly

without remorse." [13] Short situates his answer to this difficult query in the

interstices of history, geography, culture, and the political and social

system.

Not content with mere context, he adds, "Evil is as evil does."

[13] He wisely admonishes his reader to understand that however horrible the

history he is about to recount may be, it does not spring from some uniquely

Cambodian malady: "When we contemplate what happened in Cambodia, we are looking

not at some esoteric horror story but into darkness, into the foul places of our

own souls." [14] Modern Cambodian history is a cautionary tale for all of

humanity, and Short aims to fashion that tale in an epic morality play.

The story Short relates is framed around the life of Saloth Sar, later

to become known as Pol Pot. But strictly speaking - notwithstanding the book's

title - this is not a biography of Pol Pot. Instead, Short uses the Khmer Rouge

leader's life as an organizing device to trace the trajectory of the Cambodian

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